Hi Diane - I would hold off on wiping the older machine until you are certain you can access your iTunes library from your other computers.
Here is what I've learned so far: I have been in to the Apple Genius Bar twice, and have had one lengthy session with Apple Care over the phone. It seems that iTunes has gone through some major changes to the structure since Leopard which make it impossible for the older version to upgrade directly to Yosemite (10.10.5) which is the OS that my new Mac Mini came with. We have an external iTunes drive with over 600G of music, organized into playlists which I created, and that the iTunes store would not be able to recreate. I am moving very slowly on all this, as several years ago I had to try to reconstruct it. I spent over 40 hours, and it still wasn't quite right, as there were many songs that were labeled "Track 1", etc. and were unfortunately organized only by the playlists. The Apple Care person will be working again tomorrow, Sunday, so I will consult with him again. We have a G4 iBook running Tiger, and and a late 2009 iMac running Snow Leopard. One thought is (with the help of Apple Care) to incrementally upgrade the iMac one OS at a time, and upgrading the external iTunes along with it. When the iTunes is finally upgraded to Yosemite on the iMac, it should (conceivably) work when attached to te Mac Mini running Yosemite. The G4 iBook can be upgraded to Leopard. I have the discs, so I might try to upgrade that computer and try running the external iTunes drive from that. I will continue to post any progress, and would appreciate any ideas from you or others who have faced a similar dilemma. Thanks for sharing the details of your setup and challenges. Mira On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 10:34:37 PM UTC-6, Diane wrote: > > Please forgive my top posting as I'm on my phone. I've been wanting to > research this myself. > > I had 2 machines, a G4 running Tiger and an 08 unibody MacBook running I > believe ML. I've had iTunes in the G4 since the beginning of time and > backed up the phone and iPad to it (until I had to upgrade to iOS 7 but > that's another story). I was planning on a new laptop in the spring and > knew I'd have a drastically smaller HD plus I could no longer back up the > mobile devices. So I read up on migrating my library to an external drive > which went flawlessly. I could read and modify my library from either > machine and back up again too. This was a couple of months before the new > laptop. > > Again, I haven't dug into it too deeply, but even when I hook the external > to the new laptop and select the correct library path, all I can see in my > library are the songs I've purchased that are shared via the cloud. :( > which is about 200 out of 1300, no playlists or anything else. > > I still have the old MB but I do want to wipe it at some point and it > seems silly to have the tower and 2 laptops on my desk! > > So based on my experience, I'm not sure upgrading your OS will solve your > problem, unless maybe you go all the way up to Yosemite? I suppose I could > try that as well, especially as I want to wipe the machine anyway. > > Diane > > Sent from my Verizon iPhone > > On Nov 17, 2015, at 3:49 PM, mkehoe <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > > *Problems trying to use an iTunes folder (library) from Mac OS 10.5.8 > (Leopard) in OS 10.10.5 (Yosemite)* > > G4 power Mac MDD 1.25 Ghz dual finally gave up due to a failing graphics > card. > > My current challenge: my large iTunes folder and media are on a 750G > drive that was internal in the G4. When connecting it to the new Mac Mini > (late 2014) that I just bought, I can't get the iTunes application to > connect to the version of iTunes on the iTunes drive I was using in the G4, > which was running Leopard (OS 10.5.8) and the iTunes version that worked > with that OS. > > I spent an hour at Apple's Genius Bar with three people weighing in. The > final consensus was that I may need to upgrade the iTunes folder on the > external drive to Lion or later BEFORE I can get the Yosemite (OS 10.10.5) > iTunes version to work. The theory is that the power Mac iTunes structure > may not leap ahead to the Intel OS easily. > > Last night I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Care, and still no > solution working directly with the Mac Mini and the drive which contains my > iTunes media from the G4 environment. > > I have an iMac from 2009 still running Snow Leopard. Does it seem like a > good idea to try to connect this external drive to the iMac and see if it > can read the iTunes structure? Should I consider an incremental upgrade to > the iMac I order to save my playlist structure from the OS 10.5.8? The > library is almost 700G, so I want to make sure I don't lose all the work > put into compiling the playlists. I backed up the drive last night. > > Any ideas? Most of the Apple folks don't have the experience of moving > from this older OS to the 10.10.5 system. > > Thanks for any ideas, > Mira > > -- > -- > You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for > those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power > Macs. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our > netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <javascript:> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "G-Group" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. 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